Cultural Value and Social Capital: Investigating Social, Health and Wellbeing Impacts in Three Coastal Towns Undergoing Culture-led Regeneration.

From the establishment of Margate's Sea Bathing Hospital in 1791, British coastal resorts were envisaged and portrayed as havens and sources of health and wellbeing. A sophisticated cultural offer was at the heart of these once fashionable resorts, typified by Bexhill-on-Sea's innovative 1935 De La Warr Pavilion with its solarium. Following decades of post-war decline, coastal towns became the locus for some of the most significant economic and health deprivation in the UK. In response, and in part designed to contribute to their regeneration, the three towns of Margate, Folkestone and Bexhill On Sea, that are the subject of the proposed research, have experienced significant, high-profile recent cultural interventions i.e. Turner Contemporary, Margate, the Triennial and other initiatives by Folkestone's Creative Foundation, and the rebirth of the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill.

In order to help build a more complete understanding of cultural value, we propose to engage these organisations and their respective geographic communities in assessing and evaluating their social and cultural impacts relating to improvements to health and wellbeing.

Research participants will comprise arts and health researchers, staff, participatory art practitioners, funders, collaborators, partners, volunteers and customers of the three cultural organisations, and local citizens.

We will use a mixed methods approach of quantitative and qualitative methodology in action research to understand the work and its impact. The methods will combine established research tools with a modified version of DOTT: the Design Council's double diamond design process model, which is widely used as an iterative, inclusive method to engage local people and communities. The methods include:

1. Literature reviews relating to arts, culture, health and wellbeing and culture-led regeneration in coastal towns.
2. A questionnaire to audit the activities of the three cultural organisations thought by staff to be of cultural value.
3. Focus workshops to discuss with staff, participatory art practitioners, funders, collaborators, partners and volunteers of the three organisations, their perceptions of the delivery and impact of culture-led activities and their relationship to social capital and cultural value.
4. Pre and post focus group discussions with arts practitioners and participants of three short-term cultural activity programmes, one in each of the cultural organisations, to generate an in-depth understanding of attitudes and experiences.
5. A 'mind mapping wall' within cultural organisations where the customer-base is invited to pin up individual 'mind maps' illustrating their perceptions of the organisations' connections.
6. Social media - where the customers of the three organisations will be invited to take part in discussions on social media sites relating to the research topics.

The results of data gathered by these methods will inform 'co-design/co-delivery' stages of the project which will use a Design Charrette (an iterative, participatory process) to explore and improve the connectivity (physical, virtual, social and cultural) and user experience of the cultural organisations and analyse the extent to which their interior and exterior layouts, programming and (social) media strategies engender connections and opportunities for access and interaction.

Our approach blends social capital theory with participatory action research and draws upon a modified version of DOTT: the Design Council's double diamond design process model, which is widely used as an iterative, inclusive method to engage local people and communities.

Our intention is to explore the potential for developing new research methodology that adapts to the needs of cultural value research, which builds on the proven strengths of DOTT and in turn meets the requirements of the research aims, objectives and questions in an innovative and productive manner.

The wider and longer-term effects of the immediate project are expected impact positively on:

- Individuals and communities
- Providers of cultural services in the three towns
- Public health and wellbeing agencies
- Arts, culture, health and wellbeing focused research and practice
- Strategic planners involved in community health and wellbeing and coastal town regeneration

The key legacy impact of the research relates to the concerns of the project's scope:

1. Reflective individuals and engaged citizens
- New channels of communication between individuals and the institutions
- Individuals' voices heard
- Individuals invited to engage in innovative and creative data production
- Potential for community-informed policies for change.

2. Urban regeneration and community dynamics
- Enhanced understanding amongst the institutions of engagement through the generation of social capital.
- Sustainable multi-agency networking and knowledge exchange.

3. Improvements to health and wellbeing
- Better informed research methodology perspectives to develop further tools for measuring the cultural value of social capital
- Better understanding of evidence-based cultural practice in the three towns and the potential impact on cultural value to support individual and community health and wellbeing
- Better understanding of cultural value rooted in social network theory and practice and the potential link with cultural practice and sociability
- Information relevant to policy on commissioning cultural activities in the arenas of public health, health promotion and health rehabilitation.


The potential outcomes to the proposed newly established research model are to:
- Provide a mechanism to assess the social capital of cultural organisations in their communities.
- Generate recommendations to increase cultural organisations' social capital and ability to contribute to health and wellbeing.
- Establish an efficient and effective means to monitor cultural organisations' social capital over time.